


Last Goodbye

by Fly



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fly/pseuds/Fly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the <a href="http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/45284.html">FF Kiss Battle</a>. Request was for Cloud and Zack's last kiss goodbye. It's not romantic; not really. It's more about becoming a casualty to justify someone else's revenge quest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Goodbye

"You and I," says Zack, "are gonna save the world one day." He reaches into the peeling wood in the centre of the fire, bark rolled off into crumbling, black curls, and it coughs out a swarm of red sparks that settle in his uniform. It doesn't bother him, really. It doesn't bother Cloud either, who is slumped backwards on his wrist against the boulder Zack brought there, grey-skinned and dead-eyed and blank. "I don't know how, or who we'll be up against, but - " he turns his head back towards the horizon, "but it's not like there's a shortage of people out there now who deserve what's coming to them. And you'll be - "

Zack knows what Cloud will be. Cloud will be what he is now. First he'll be a liability, but as taking care of him gets easier and Zack can do more, he'll sink into the back of Zack's mind as a casualty, another person to avenge, as if Zack doesn't already have a good enough reason, as if Zack hasn't already lost enough, as if Cloud wasn't a person but an idea Zack had come up with once. And even though Zack knows that it's all him, he is still kind of mad at Cloud for that.

"You'll be amazing," Zack tells him. Cloud blinks, rubbery eyelids sliding over a materia-glass thousand yard stare, and they peel back just as slowly and Zack reminds himself Cloud wasn't responding to anything that Zack said. "I know you're not as experienced as me, so it might be pretty hard for you at first. So just take your time, focus on your goals - " He sidles up beside Cloud, smiling - "and if you get stuck or run out of ideas or whatever, just do what I'd do. Then it doesn't matter that you have less experience, because no-one will know."

As he slides his arms under Cloud's to heft him closer to the fire - or maybe further away, maybe his organs are burning up inside him and the warmth is just killing him faster and even if it does kill him it wouldn't be different, because there'd still be as much Cloud in the world as there is here right now, except for the fact that Zack _knows with his entire body_ that it _would_ be different - as he moves him closer to the fire, he grabs Cloud's reddened wrist and turns it over, so he isn't straining his joints any more. Cloud is heavier now, and his chest feels like it has been packed with bundles of wire, and Zack doesn't want to think about why. Cloud's head is bowed down, chin on his chest, lifeless as a corpse.

Zack wants Cloud to laugh at one of his jokes, even though that would be a lot to hope for at the best of times. Zack wants Cloud to roll his eyes at one of his jokes and then smile at how stupid it was because he just couldn't help it. Zack wants Cloud to move.

But Cloud isn't moving, so Zack is sitting there in the cold, a Mako-green dusk sky stretching out as far as he can see, reflected just as bright against the marshwater around them, listening to the wind smearing the fire and holding Cloud tightly against his body, as much returned in the embrace as if he was a kid holding a stuffed animal. The thought disturbs him, but not enough to make him let go.

Zack spends the night like that, Cloud's warm, limp, all-the-wrong-shape-and-size-now body pinned against his own, the fire drawing a blush to his cheeks. He dozes off a few times, although not deep enough to have real dreams; just moronic, repetitive visions of waking up in Aeris's bed, and going downstairs for breakfast, and finding it's too cold but he can't speak and there's a terrible weight holding down his arms.

The sound of voices wake him, the fire just ashes and the sun ringed in sickly, yellow mist. Zack sees the band of patrolmen - three or four of them, on foot, wading through the marshes, getting stuck, splashing, swearing. Zack looks at his sword. It is exactly where he left it.

"Come on, Cloud," he says, pulling him to his feet. He doesn't notice Cloud's mouth closing, his face falling limp as Zack takes his cheek away.


End file.
